WSB-TV’s Tracey Christensen on social media’s power

In a previous life, I managed 20 social media channels for a non-profit. I’ll admit it was a large non-profit and one that (thankfully) saw the light years ago in terms of the need to focus on social media marketing. As I spoke to community groups or college classes about our growth and engagement, I would inevitably receive the question, “How many people work in your social media department?” The answer: one. Just me.

For non-profits that think social media is too time-consuming of a task to worry about, I can tell you it’s not. You likely have people inside your organization who have a passion for at least one social media channel. Whether it’s Facebook, Instagram, Twitter or Pinterest, what would happen if you asked just two people to spend 30 minutes a day finding an engaging, visual post for their assigned channels? Considering the fact that nearly half of non-profits spend just two hours or less a week on social media, you will have more than doubled their efforts without taking a huge chunk of time out of anyone’s day.

Social Media Benchmark’s 2015 report backs up the argument that you do not have to spend an enormous amount of time on social media to make a big impact with both awareness and donations. The non-profit/education industry receives the highest average number of interactions per post on both Facebook and Twitter, even though they aren’t posting with more frequency than other industries. In fact, the report shows that the nonprofit/education industry averages just 8.5 posts per week. To break it down, that’s roughly 1.2 posts per day. What may seem like a daunting task for your organization is truly within reach. The time is now to get started with an effective social media strategy that will grow with your organization.

Tracey Christensen is the manager of digital strategy at WSB-TV. Follow her and engage with her on Twitter: @tachristensen.

Archive

Pages

About our Blog

This blog is presented by the Georgia Center for Nonprofits. GCN builds thriving communities by helping nonprofits succeed. Through a powerful mix of advocacy, solutions for nonprofit effectiveness, and insight building tools, we provide nonprofits, board members and donors with the tools they need to strengthen organizations that make a difference on important causes throughout Georgia. Editorial Guidelines